There has been conventionally employed a method of performing an in vitro culture of a cell or tissue of a living body such as human body, wherein a temperature, a humidity, a carbon dioxide concentration, an oxygen concentration in an incubator (culture housing) are maintained at proper conditions, and the cell is cultivated in the incubator. The cell or tissue is placed in a culture fluid in a suspending state, and it is fixed to an interior or surface of a gel in which the culture fluid ingredient is contained, thereby proliferating and growing the cell or tissue, or the cell or tissue is transplanted in a material, that is exemplified as a matrix or scaffold, a carrier or a mold and so forth (hereinafter referred to as “matrix”), thereby proliferating and growing the cell or tissue in the matrix.
Meanwhile, it is important to apply a physical stimulation to a cell or tissue to be cultivated in addition to an environment condition such as a temperature, a humidity, a carbon dioxide concentration, an oxygen concentration for proliferating and growing the cell or tissue. Such a physical stimulation is an indispensable constituent for facilitating differentiation and growth of the cell or tissue and for growing the cell or tissue to be rendered closer to that in the living body. For a technology for applying a physical stimulation to the cell or tissue for proliferating and growing the cell or tissue, there are, for example, JP 2001-504697A entitled “Application of shear flow stress to chondrocytes”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,121,042 entitled “Apparatus and method for simulating in vivo conditions while seeding and culturing three-dimensional tissue constructs”, and so forth.
Although it is necessary to add a dynamic condition such as a physical stimulation to a static condition, a so-called culture environment such as a temperature, a humidity, a carbon dioxide concentration, an oxygen concentration for proliferating and growing the cell or tissue, there is a possibility that the control of the dynamic condition together with the static condition renders a control mode complex, and a factor caused by the invasion of various bacteria, and so forth increases. It is an important challenge to protect a material to be cultivated from contamination of various bacteria.
Accordingly, it is a first object of the invention to provide a cell/tissue culture apparatus capable of realizing a desired culture by applying a physical stimulation, which is necessary for proliferation and growth of the cell or tissue, to a material to be cultivated serving as a cell or tissue to be cultivated.
It is a second object of the invention to provide a cell/tissue culture apparatus for protecting the material to be cultivated from contamination of various bacteria and so forth.